A2 ENGLISH LANGUAGE ­ VARIETIES, EDITORIAL WRITING ENGLISH LANG/LIT ­ GENRE STUDIES HISTORICAL TEXTSFour major changes affected English in period between 1500 (you won'tget anything earlier than this) and the present: Continuing loss of inflections Standardisation of spelling and syntax Acquisition of thousands of Latin, Greek and other foreign terms Movement towards greater simplicity, clarity and flexibility of expressionWhen you are analysing a historical text, note anything which is differentfrom Modern Standard English. Remember ­ it's not wrong, justdifferent! Also notice that the genre of the text has a bearing ­ an 18thcentury poem reflects not only the historical context but also the genreof the text, and the use of archaic language (for example) may be apoetic convention of the time.When commenting on the differences between historical texts andmodern texts, always think about standardisation (or lack of it).The texts you will get will NOT be in Old English or even Middle English ­they will be Early Modern English or later. Do NOT refer to Old English ­this is pre 1150, and would be a real gaffe!Examples are given with each bullet point, but they are obviously notexhaustive ­ they are just examples.HISTORICAL TEXTS CHECKLIST.doc

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CHECKLIST OF POINTS FOR HISTORICAL TEXTSSpelling ­ reflecting pronunciation and lack of standarisation The spelling of the same word in different ways in the same text Interchangeable u / v, i / y, s / f Redundant final e in singulars (reflecting pronunciation) Variant spellings of final e in plural endings (es / us / is / ys) Variant spellings of non for no or not oo or on for one Abbreviations of the, that and them to ye, yt and ym ­ purely…read more